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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521369">Does Explain Some Stuff</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/equals_eleven_thirds/pseuds/equals_eleven_thirds'>equals_eleven_thirds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(wrt a character consenting only due to Expectations), Acephobia, Asexuality Spectrum, Canon Asexual Character, F/F, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Internalized Acephobia, Melanie might be aspec but she doesn't know and doesn't want to think about it, Mentioned Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Non-Canon Asexual Character (maybe), Outing, discussion of sex, everything is very messy from the trauma processing to the characters to the ending, nothing is concrete or nicely wrapped up. sometimes life's like that.</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:27:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,387</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521369</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/equals_eleven_thirds/pseuds/equals_eleven_thirds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with: "I don't."</p><p>Or: Melanie is <em>absolutely not</em> talking about this. Or thinking about this. There is no this. (There is.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Georgie Barker/Melanie King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>89</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Does Explain Some Stuff</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>quick disclaimer: this is not meant to excuse or absolve melanie and georgie of outing jon; what they did was wrong and they should not have done it. instead it is an… examination of a character who is Maybe working some things out but, due to Internalized Issues, is harshly rejecting it both for herself and other people. (i’m aware i wrote something with the exact same FUCKING premise back when i was in the sh*rl*ck fandom dear god don’t read that fic it is still around but like, only for personal reasons.) (it's almost like i’m still working through the exact same stuff via writing fanfiction. hm.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It starts with: “I don’t, I, I usually can’t—Lately. I mean. Lately I can’t.” Melanie shuts her eyes so she won’t have to see Georgie, her hand on the sheets, <strike>judgment</strike> questions in her eyes. “Since I got—shot. It’s more difficult, is all.”</p><p>“Melanie—”</p><p>“You can still try,” she says, the words falling too fast, too panicked. “If you want, sometimes other people—and it’s fine! I’m always, it’s fine to try. Sometimes I do. I just might not. You know.”</p><p>“You might not orgasm,” Georgie finishes for her. It’s hard to tell how she’s feeling about it—until her fingers brush Melanie’s chin, turning her face up.</p><p>Reluctantly, Melanie opens her eyes, and then she’s glad she did. Because Georgie’s smiling, not a mocking smile, gentle. And they said this was just, just casual, just between friends (there’s too much going on with ghosts and the Institute and Georgie’s ex sleeping on her couch when he isn’t being kidnapped for it to be more than that), but Melanie’s glad Georgie is smiling.</p><p>“Hey, it’s okay,” Georgie says. She’s sitting up now, not lying almost-not-quite between Melanie’s legs anymore. She looks gorgeous, naked and cross-legged on that horrible mattress with a microfiber sheet wrapped around her shoulders, and Melanie wants to curl up in the sheet with her and eat the leftover pizza from earlier and fall asleep together with grease on their hands.</p><p>No. Focus. “It’s okay,” Georgie says again, gentler. “If you can’t right now. If you don’t want to. You certainly gave me a lovely orgasm—”</p><p>“—or three—”</p><p>“—yes, thank you, and if you’d rather just call it there, I’m not pushing it. As long as you enjoyed yourself.” She frowns, suddenly, glancing down at Melanie’s hands. “You… did enjoy yourself? I hope we didn’t—”</p><p>“I did!” She always does, when it’s <em>other</em> <em>people</em> coming, when she gets to be touching warm skin and watching someone fall apart. It’s… nice. “It’s just, you know. I got shot.”</p><p>(And isn’t that a <em>convenient excuse</em>, she sneers in her own head, and it sounds like Toni refusing to come back to the team, it sounds like the most sarcastic videos about her <em>breakdown</em>, it sounds like Elias. Isn’t it convenient that now you can blame your little problem on blood flow, or nerve endings, or stress. Never mind that you didn’t have those excuses a year ago. Or two years. Or back when you had a real girlfriend, and you always said <em>yes </em>but she got tired before—)</p><p>Georgie tucks a strand of hair behind Melanie’s ear. “Okay, good. If we, you know, try this again sometime? If you’re feeling better? Then I can try.” She stops, licks her lips, watches Melanie’s expression. “Or I can… not try, if you’d still prefer that. Later. You know. If.”</p><p>“I’m not—” And she’s rushing again, always rushing, she doesn’t even <em>know </em>if she and Georgie will ever—</p><p>“No, I know! It’s fine! But like—Look, this isn’t exactly new for me, you know? If that’s something you want. Something you don’t want. Or I, I’m saying it’s not a <em>problem</em>, if you do or don’t want me to make you come in the future, or even if you don’t want to have sex at all, I mean, when we were dating Jon didn’t—”</p><p>That’s where Georgie stops, as if talking about <em>Jon </em>is too much, as if she hasn’t been speaking Melanie’s secret insecurities out loud in bed like it’s something they can <em>talk </em>about, as if all of this hasn’t already been too much and too terrifying already.</p><p>Melanie stands up, grabs the comforter as a makeshift cloak (because Georgie has the sheet, and suddenly she isn’t sure she wants to share the sheet with her). “Right.”</p><p>“I’m just—I have a friend. Who you might talk to, if you wanted to talk about this.”</p><p>She steps away from the bed, towards the door. “Sure. Pizza? I’m hungry.”</p><p>-</p><p>The problem is, Melanie doesn’t much <em>like </em>Jon. He was such a dick about the Youtube thing, and about her statement, and about Sasha. And even though she knows (sort of) that part of it hadn’t been his fault, she still isn’t going to <em>talk over her disinterest in sex</em> with him. It’s <em>mortifying</em>. Even if he wasn’t her boss. And Georgie’s ex. And currently out of the Archives, anyway.</p><p>But she wants to talk to <em>somebody</em>, about Georgie’s words running around and around and around her head, about the sheer panic mixing with almost-relief and then the visceral <em>no no no</em> churning low in her stomach that had made it a struggle just to choke down her pizza. She wants to ask someone <em>is this normal, am I allowed, is it even enough to be halfway to </em><em>‘not at all’ or should I just suck it up</em>. She wants to talk that out <em>desperately.</em></p><p>It’s just… she doesn’t have many friends left, after her whole fall from Youtube ghost hunter grace. She’s <em>not </em>going to ask Georgie about it, any more than Jon, although for pretty much the opposite reason. Who’s left? Her shiny new coworkers? Tim, who seethes and hates everything and everyone in the Archives? Martin, who’s still upset that Jon so much as spoke to her while he was on the run? Basira?</p><p>-</p><p>When Melanie met Sasha—the real Sasha, the one apparently no one but her even remembers—she’d been the only woman in the Archives. And Melanie had chatted with her about haunted pubs, and maximizing SEO, and how to talk to people who’d seen a white dog while they were drunk and thought it was a ghost. And about their jobs, of course, which led to both of them scoffing about the sexist bullshit of academia and how someone like Sasha could be just an assistant <em>and </em>the only woman on her team.</p><p>And then Elias hired Melanie to replace… the thing that replaced Sasha. Hired another woman to replace the only woman. You learn to see patterns from the kind of person who might say <em>diversity</em> the same way as <em>toilet plunger</em>: something necessary, but distasteful. Melanie was filling a role he needed filled, and she could live with that.</p><p>And then Basira.</p><p>Who wasn’t there because she wanted to be, of course, but was still <em>there.</em> Was still another woman in the boy’s club of terror they’d apparently signed on for. Could maybe, <em>maybe</em>, be someone Melanie could connect with. Someone she could talk to.</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>-</p><p>“Do you know if he and Jon ever…?”</p><p>“No clue, and not interested!” She’s laughing, about to just dismiss it out of hand, but… <em>maybe</em>. She can feel the questions she never asked Georgie, the words sharpening their claws on the edges of her mind. The <em>no, not me, not allowed</em> sinking in her gut.</p><p>“Although…” Make it light. Make it interesting. Make it about someone else. <em>How to hook an audience without having a public breakdown and becoming a</em>— <em>“</em>According to Georgie, Jon… doesn’t.”</p><p>It feels wrong as soon as she says it. Like she’s dirty. Like she’s lying. Like a thousand eyes are looking at her, watching her, waiting for more. <em>Make it a story. Engage your audience.</em> Like it’s 2013 in a convention hotel room and Pete just told everyone <em>Don</em><em>’t worry, Mel likes girls actually</em>, and even though they were all <em>fine </em>about it that moment of sharpshock terror in her throat as they all <em>looked</em>—</p><p>“Like, at all?”</p><p>The one thing she never learned was how to stop talking. “Yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah, that does explain some stuff.”</p><p>And that’s… it, really. <em>That does explain some stuff.</em> Jon is a dick, has always been a dick, overfocused on work and not on other people, and <em>that does explain some stuff</em>. Right. Yes. Like her last girlfriend had told her, about <em>all you do is work, I can</em><em>’t even get you off</em>. An explanation, just like she always knew it would be.</p><p>It doesn’t really matter. She has a boss to go kill.</p><p>-</p><p>“I think,” she says, slow, like every word is being dragged out of her, “that I might not like. Sex. As much as, you know, people do.”</p><p>“You’re a person,” her therapist says, firm, and she has to bite back a sarcastic laugh.</p><p>“Right. ‘Course.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i've had a long and complicated personal journey in and out of various aspec labels. i'm still working on it. part of the in-and-outness of it is to do with various aphobic influences in my life at different times. and sometimes... i project things onto fictional characters. u kno how it is.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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